9/11, and the True Knot’s first rule of survival was never attract attention.
Thanks to the interstate highway system, the RVs had always served their purposes, and would this time. A small raiding party, with new drivers taking the wheel every six hours, could get from Sidewinder to northern New England in less than thirty hours.
“All right,” she said, mollified. “What have we got along I-90 in upstate New York or Massachusetts?”
Crow didn’t hem and haw or tell her he’d have to get back to her on that. “EZ Mail Services, in Sturbridge, Massachusetts.”
She flapped her fingers at the edge of the sheet of incomprehensible chemistry Nut was holding in his hand. “Have this stuff sent there. Use at least three cutouts so we have complete deniability if something goes wrong. Really bounce it around.”
“Do we have that much time?” Crow asked.
“I don’t see why not,” Rose said—a remark that would come back to haunt her. “Send it south, then into the Midwest, then into New England. Just get it to Sturbridge by Thursday. Use Express Mail, not FedEx or UPS.”
“I can do that,” Crow said. No hesitation.
Rose turned her attention to the True’s doctor. “You better be right, Walnut. If you do OD her instead of just putting her to sleep, I’ll see you’re the first True to be sent into exile since Little Big Horn.”
Walnut paled a little. Good. She had no intention of exiling anyone, but she still resented being interrupted.
“We’ll get the drug to Sturbridge, and Nut will know how to use it,” Crow said. “No problem.”
“There’s nothing simpler? Something we can get around here?”
Nut said, “Not if you want to be sure she doesn’t go Michael Jackson on us. This stuff is safe, and it hits fast. If she’s as powerful as you seem to think, fast is going to be impor—”
“Okay, okay, I get it. Are we done here?”
“There’s one more thing,” Walnut said. “I suppose it could wait, but . . .”
She looked out the window and, ye gods and little fishes, here came Jimmy Numbers, bustling across the parking lot adjacent to the Overlook Lodge with his own sheet of paper. Why had she hung the DO NOT DISTURB sign on her doorknob? Why not one that said Y’ALL COME?
Rose gathered all her bad temper, stuffed it in a sack, stored it at the back of her mind, and smiled gamely. “What is it?”
“Grampa Flick,” Crow said, “is no longer holding his fudge.”
“He hasn’t been able to hold it for the last twenty years,” Rose said. “He won’t wear diapers, and I can’t make him. No one can make him.”
“This is different,” Nut said. “He can barely get out of bed. Baba and Black-Eyed Susie are taking care of him as well as they can, but that camper of his smells like the wrath of God—”
“He’ll get better. We’ll feed him some steam.” But she didn’t like the look on Nut’s face. Tommy the Truck had passed two years ago, and by the way the True measured time, that might have been two weeks ago. Now Grampa Flick?
“His mind’s breaking down,” Crow said bluntly. “And . . .” He looked at Walnut.
“Petty was taking care of him this morning, and she says she thinks she saw him cycle.”
“Thinks,” Rose said. She didn’t want to believe it. “Has anyone else seen it happen? Baba? Sue?”
“No.”
She shrugged as if to say there you are. Jimmy knocked before they could discuss it farther, and this time she was glad for the interruption.
“Come in!”
Jimmy poked his head through. “Sure it’s okay?”
“Yes! Why don’t you bring the Rockettes and the UCLA marching band while you’re at it? Hell, I was only trying to get in a meditation groove after a few pleasant hours of spewing my guts.”
Crow was giving her a look of mild reproof, and maybe she deserved it—probably she deserved it, these people were only doing the True’s work as she had asked them to do it—but if Crow ever stepped up to the captain’s chair, he’d understand. Never a moment to yourself, unless you threatened them with pain of death. And in many cases, not even then.
“I got something you may want to see,” Jimmy said. “And since Crow and Nut were already here, I figured—”
“I know what you figured. What is it?”
“I went hunting around on the internet for news about those two towns you zeroed in on—Fryeburg and Anniston. Found this in the Union Leader. It’s from last Thursday’s paper. Maybe it’s nothing.”